


Mind Games

by lyndysambora



Category: Bon Jovi (Band), The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:02:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22942231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyndysambora/pseuds/lyndysambora
Summary: In which young Richie meets an idol-- and begins a conversation that will change his life.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 7





	1. Planting Seeds

1980

The club was one of those places that you wouldn't find on any map, because it didn't exist when the last map of the area was published and probably wouldn't exist by the time the next map was published. It was the kind of place that you heard of by word of mouth, usually from other musicians. The kind of place people called _underground_ , with a slight inflection as if to imply it meant _dirty_ or _uncouth_. The kind of place you went to hear unbelievable music by people you'd never heard of, but whose music would be on every radio station next month. A magnet for undiscovered talent. A musicians' mecca, either for playing out, or listening, or just for meeting other musicians. 

New York City was full of them. Richie Sambora had set aside a few nights to spend just checking out some of these places his musician friends had told him about. 

This club was situated in an industrial district, hidden amongst warehouses and factories and shit apartments where people lived for only a few months at a time and then either moved out to mooch off of friends, or were evicted for nonpayment of rent, or who died of drug overdoses and were replaced within days by some other broke and desperate tenant, sometimes before the smell had even cleared. 

Richie was no stranger to the rougher aspects of human nature and social decay; his own neck of the woods was full of it. But this area gave even him a sense of despair and danger. Before he stepped in the door of the club, he had wondered if he even had the right place. After he stepped in the door, all doubt was removed. 

As expected, the guys on stage were nobody Richie had ever heard of, but they were amazing. The audience was respectable for a place that nobody really knew about, but didn't come close to filling all the seats. 

Richie ordered a beer from the makeshift bar and then settled himself into a table near the back corner, so he could observe the patrons as well as the band. He knew that paying attention to the audience's reactions to an act was almost as important as the act itself, so he usually took whatever seat would put him nearest a back corner of a venue. But in this case, there was already some guy sitting in the spot Richie would have taken, so Richie took the table next to him. 

The band was playing some kind of rock/punk hybrid kind of music, heavier than the stuff that had come out in the past few years, sounding somehow years ahead of its time. Richie wasn't sure he was into the actual music style, but the tightness of the band made him think these guys had been together a long time, or were just somehow made for each other musically. He imagined these guys were writing together from the first time they met. 

Taking a pull off his beer, Richie motioned toward the stage and said, “Not bad, huh?” to the guy at the next table. He never took his eyes off the stage. 

The other guy said, “I've heard better, I've heard worse.” 

He had a Scouse accent and it startled Richie enough to make him turn around. 

“Holy shit.” 

“Nice to meet you, too.”

“Oh, I um--” Richie stammered, still trying to comprehend the fact that it was John-fucking-Lennon he was talking to. “Sorry, it just surprised me.”

“That happens to me a lot,” John said, and scooted out the chair next to him. “You want to sit over here? I assume you like the corner table, too?”

Richie rose, trying to keep his knees from visibly shaking, and took the offered chair. “Yeah. I like to watch the crowd.”

“That's smart. You're a musician, then?”

“Well-- sort of.”

“What does that mean? You are or you aren't.”

“I am, but it just seems a little weird to call _myself_ a musician--”

“Oh, come on, mate. That shit's for kids.”

Richie looked into his beer, then cleared his throat and made eye contact. “Yes, I'm a musician. My name's Richard Sambora.”

“You go by Richard?”

“Richie.”

“All right, then.”

The song ended, and the crowd applauded. Most of the people in the club seemed less drunk than you would find at any other club. This didn't surprise Richie in the slightest; it was the mark of how serious the musicians were who came to these places. Hacks and wannabes got drunk and high at a place like this. Those who came to learn or network could be expected to nurse a barely-there buzz only, if at all. The music was paramount. 

In fact, the people up toward the stage were so enthralled with the band that their drinks were sitting mostly untouched on their tables. Most were men, but they were gazing at the band with the rapt attention usually delivered by women. Richie chuckled.

“What's funny?”

“The guys up there in front. They look like they're a minute away from tossing their panties on stage.”

John regarded the front tables for a few seconds. “Yeah, they do. Guess that means these guys are pretty good, eh?”

“I don't know if I've ever seen a band that good. A male band, anyway. No offense.”

John smiled. “None taken.” 

“That would have to be some _really_ great music, man,” Richie said, laughing again and taking another drink of his beer. 

“You don't think you could ever be seduced by a man?”

Richie spluttered a little into his glass and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “What?”

John was still smiling. “You're having a giggle because the guys up front look like they have more than music on their minds. You don't think you could ever be seduced by a man?”

“I'm not sure I understand the question.”

“Let me put it another way; are there any circumstances under which you think it's possible that you could think of another man in a sexual manner?

Richie laughed disbelievingly.

“I'm serious,” John said. “And I don't mean, last two people on earth, or stranded on an island or some silly scenario like that. I mean, in your life, as you know it. Is there any way you could ever think of another man in a sexual manner?

“No.”

“You're sure of that.”

“Of course.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“So at the age of twenty, you have already arbitrarily written off half of the people you'll ever meet as potential love interests.”

Richie took another drink to give him something to do. “How is it arbitrary?”

“Because you haven't even met them, and you've already rejected them.”

“But they're men.”

“I know that.”

“It's not arbitrary. I'm straight.”

John made eye contact with the bartender and tipped his head. “What does it mean to be 'straight', though? That's what I'm getting at.”

“You know what it means to be straight. I like women.”

“Do you have friends who are men?”

“Yeah.”

“Does it make you less straight to have men friends?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm not having sex with them.”

“So being 'straight' is all about sex.”

“Well, yeah. In a way.”

“In what way?”

“What do you mean, 'what way'? If I'm straight, I want to have sex with women.”

The bartender arrived with a fresh round of drinks for them, clearing away the near-empty glasses as he left. 

John said, “And because you only want to have sex with women, you can love only women in a romantic sense?”

“Yeah.”

“Don't you think you have that a little backwards, though?”

“How so?”

“Well, usually-- not all the time, I guess, but in the case of a relationship that has any potential to go anywhere, you have sex with someone you're compatible with.”

“Yeah...”

“In your case, you are saying you can only be compatible with someone you could have sex with.”

Richie turned the statement over in his head. 

John said, “Seems a little backward to me. At best, a little superficial.”

“You're saying I'm superficial because I want my sex partner to have a vagina?”

“No. I like a good vagina as much as the next guy.”

“Then you know what I mean.”

“I know what you _think_ you mean. But I still don't think you've gotten to the heart of things.”

“Enlighten me. Please.”

John smiled and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. He tapped one out and offered it to Richie, and Richie took it. They both lit up and sat in silence for a few seconds until John finally said, “All right. Imagine you go out with a lady. She's very special to you; she's funny, beautiful, intelligent, compatible with you in every way. She's kind of shy, so she hasn't had sex with you and that is kind of frustrating, but after awhile, you're inseparable from her anyway. You love her. You want to marry her and spend the rest of your life just proving to her you're worthy of her.”

“Okay.”

Dragging off the cigarette and holding it in for a moment, John said, “And then you ask her to marry you, and she says she's very sorry she's led you on, but there's something she needs to tell you. She tells you she has some kind of condition, a birth defect or something, that makes it so she can't have vaginal intercourse with you.”

“Okay.”

“Do you love her less?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, wait a minute here. You said you want your sex partner to have a vagina. I assume you were referring to a working vagina.”

“Well, yeah.”

“But your lady love doesn't have a working vagina, so to speak.”

“That isn't fair.”

“Why not?”

“Because she's still a woman,” Richie said, blowing a puff of smoke toward the darkened ceiling. “Even if she can't have intercourse.

“So you're retracting your previous statement about what constitutes sexual compatibility?”

“Maybe it was a little narrow.”

John smiled. “See? You're already understanding my point.”

Laughing, Richie said, “Being in love with a woman with a birth defect is a far cry from being attracted to men.”

“Okay. What is it about your male friends that makes them your friends?”

“We hang out together, we do things together. We talk about stuff.”

“Like with your vagina-deficient lady love.”

“Yeah, but I can't have sex with my guy friends.”

“You can't have sex with your lady love either.”

“Sure I can. There are other ways.”

“Like what?”

“Oh come on,” Richie said. “You know what other ways.”

“Oh. In that case, there are other ways with your male friends, too.”

Richie laughed again, but this time the laugh seemed a little forced, even to his own ears. 

“Does that wig you out?” John asked. “To think about it?”

“Just a little.”

“Why?”

“Because they're guys.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Um... because they're _guys_.”

“Oh come on. You put a blindfold on, you can't tell whether it's a man or a woman blowing you.”

Richie shook his head, and took a drink, feeling a sudden flush fill his face. 

“Did I hit a nerve?

Shaking his head again, Richie said, “You know, if you were anyone else, I'd have left this conversation a long time ago.”

John smiled. “One of the benefits of being me. I wax philosophical and total strangers grant me audience.”


	2. Lifting The Veil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It's even sadder to think that a person might avoid the one thing that could make them really happy, because of what other people might think about it.”

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, blowing the occasional smoke ring toward the ceiling. After they had both ground their spent cigarettes into the tarry glass ashtray in the middle of the table, John said, “You do realize I'm not trying to put the make on you, don't you?”

Richie coughed the last bit of smoke out of his lungs. “I, uh... I didn't even think of that.”

“Good, because I'm not. But I do like to listen to myself talk.”

“I kinda gathered.”

Smiling again, John said, “I do like you, though. You're not afraid to talk to me.”

“Why would I be?”

“No reason. But most strangers are more skittish.”

“My mom used to tell me I could make friends with a brick wall.”

John actually laughed at this. “That is equal parts charming and insulting.”

“I know. She said it to my first girlfriend when I had her over for dinner. The girl broke up with me the next day. 'I can't be with a boy whose mother thinks my head is full of bricks.' Her exact words. I was going to try to explain, but I already had my eye on someone else anyway.”

“Ah, so you're one of those guys, huh?”

“One of what guys?”

“The kind that jumps from bird to bird so they can't get serious about you.”

“I didn't say that.”

“You didn't have to.”

Richie took a sip of his beer, waiting for John to elaborate, or move on to something else, but he didn't. He just continued staring at Richie-- not in a challenging way, but more with polite interest. Richie tried to simply return the gaze, but, inside of a minute, he ended up talking to fill the silence.

“I was really young then.”

“I figured so, if it was your first girlfriend. What were you, fourteen? Fifteen?”

“Fourteen.”

“Then you're telling me you think with your dick _less_ now that you're twenty?” 

“Oh, come on. Like you didn't.”

“I did, I'll admit it. But since I'm a little older now, I see it for what it was.”

“What's that?”

“Fear.”

“Meaning?”

John took another drink, then sat back and regarded Richie again. “Meaning as unflattering as the idea of 'thinking with your dick' is, we still would rather think of it as that, rather than face the real issues behind it.”

“Like?”

“Like fear that you'll miss out on something. Fear that you can't hook a woman like you once could, so you have to continue proving it. Fear that the woman you're with will fall in love with you if you stick around too long.”

“You make it sound like I'm having a mid-life crisis or something.”

“It's the same thing. When you're twenty, they call it 'being a guy'. When you're fifty, they call it a 'mid-life crisis'. Either way it's about fear.”

“I don't think it makes me _afraid_ to not want to be tied down at my age.”

“Then what is it?”

“I just haven't found a woman that I'd want to be with for that long.”

“How long was your longest relationship? With a woman.”

“About a year and a half.”

“How long have you had your oldest male friends?”

“Uh... since first grade.”

“So you haven't managed longer than a year and half with a woman, but you've had male friends since first grade. And yet you base romantic compatibility on the other person being female?”

“Oh, Jesus, we're back on this?”

“We never finished the first time.” 

“So you're saying I should be attracted to my guy friends, since they've been around longer?”

“Not at all. I'm saying your compatibility with other men clearly trumps your compatibility with women. Therefore, it just seems contradictory to think you could never fall in love with a man.”

“You're bordering on batshit, you know that?”

“How many girlfriends have you had?”

“Actual girlfriends?”

“Okay, how many women have you laid?”

“Um--”

“You don't even know, do you?”

“Well...”

“Okay, so I'm assuming there's been more than a few.”

“Yeah.”

“And I assume you found each one physically beautiful the moment you saw her, right?”

“No.”

“You didn't?”

“No. The odds on that would be astronomical.”

“So what made you want to lay a girl you didn't find all that physically attractive when you met her?”

“I'm not _that_ superficial... you get to know them. Sometimes you like the personality first, and the rest comes after. The more you like them, the more attractive they become to you.”

“So you're saying that what's on the inside--”

“Is everything sometimes. Once you love someone, the outside is just a wrapper.”

John grinned and lifted his glass. “Cheers,” he said, and drank. 

Richie rolled his eyes. “Okay, so you ran me into a corner on that one. It doesn't mean you know what you're talking about.”

“I'm not the one who said it. You were. Do you not know what you're talking about?”

Actually laughing at this, Richie said, “How about I just call up one of my guy friends right now? 'Hey, uh, Dan, it's Richie. I've been thinking and I've decided I love you for what's inside and the fact you have a dick doesn't matter.'” He raised his glass to his lips and spoke over the rim before drinking. “I can imagine how well that would go over.”

“Who is Dan?”

“One of my friends.”

“Why did you single him out just now?”

“I don't know.”

“There must be a reason Dan's name rose to the top when you were deciding what to say.”

“I've just known him a long time.”

“And you think this Dan would wig out if you or some other guy said something like that to him?”

Richie fiddled with the napkin under his glass, bending and unbending the corners. “Yeah, him and everyone else.” 

“Why does that matter?”

“Why does what matter?”

“What people's reactions might be.”

“Because I have to _live_ in that town.”

“What if it were a woman you wanted to be with and everyone you knew was wigging out about her?”

“I'd tell them to fuck off.”

“So why would it be different if it was a man?”

“Um, no offense here, but you live in Manhattan. I live in Jersey.”

“I live in Manhattan, but I grew up in Liverpool. I know a thing or two about the rougher areas of the world.”

“And how many man-on-man love stories did you see blossoming around you?”

“A few, actually.”

“And they didn't get murdered?”

“No, it made them tough as shit,” John said, chuckling at the memory. “They may have been banging blokes, but they'd kick your ass if you said anything about it.”

Despite himself, Richie chuckled, too. Then, after a few moments of silence, the smile faded from his face and he said, “They musta been pretty hard, then. Mentally, I mean.”

“A few, maybe. But a few had to learn to be that way. Sometimes what's in here--” John tapped his chest-- “matters more than what the arsemonger down the block thinks of you.”

Richie thought about this for a minute, then said, “It's all a lot easier when it's rhetorical.”

“Nothing rhetorical about that part of it. I saw it with my own eyes. I've also lived it. Perhaps you are familiar with my wife, Yoko?”

Richie groaned. “Ah, yeah, I wasn't thinking.”

“Sure you are. I'd wager you're thinking more now than you ever have. Well, about this subject anyway.”

“And, um, what subject is this, exactly?”

“Love.”

“That's it? That simple, huh?”

“Should it be more complicated than that?”

The bartender appeared with refills, and John doled out cigarettes again. After he and Richie both lit up, he said, “It really is sad, though.”

“What is?”

“The shit you have to go through sometimes, just to be with the person you love.”

“Yeah.”

“Especially if that person happens to have the same equipment you do.”

“Yeah... it'd be like a cosmic joke or something, falling in love with someone and one of you was born in the wrong body.”

“Well, hold on. That assumes there is something fundamentally wrong with loving someone of the same gender. I don't believe that.”

“You don't think it's just a bit unnatural?”

“Not at all. Some animals do it.”

Richie laughed, but John's face remained straight. “Look into it some time. You might be surprised.”

Taking a drag off his cigarette to avoid having to respond to that, Richie looked back at the stage. The band was still playing, to the captivated delight of the patrons at the front tables. Richie couldn't even remember hearing the last few songs. The sound of John's voice recaptured his attention.

“Anyway, I think it's pathetic how society judges you for shit that is absolutely none of their business.”

“Yeah.”

“It's even sadder to think that a person might avoid the one thing that could make them really happy, because of what other people might think about it.”

Richie looked back up toward the front tables full of rapturous male attention and thought about his original comment about the men tossing their panties. He grimaced slightly, wondering when he, himself, had become a cog in the gears of that judgmental society he despised. 

“It's getting pretty late,” John said, and Richie turned around to see him checking his watch. “You said you live in Jersey?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you staying with someone here in the city, or were you planning on making that drive tonight?”

“I was gonna go home. I'm used to the drive.”

“Bollocks. You can stay at my flat tonight. Get your car in the morning.”

A variety of thoughts paraded through Richie's head, but the one he spoke out loud was, “It'll be stripped clean by morning.”

Pulling out his wallet and thumbing through the bills inside for the bartender's tip, John said, “If it isn't already. You have to take a taxi to these places.”

“I'll remember that.”

John pulled out a $20 bill and waved the bartender back over. “Anything missing off your car, I'll replace for you, how's that? I'm not done talking to you.”

“Fair enough. But the side mirrors were there when I parked it.”

“Piss off.”


	3. Absolute Elsewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chill passed through Richie's body, starting in his chest and radiating down his legs and arms and all the way out his fingertips. The adrenaline rush before taking a plunge.

John's apartment was as nice as Richie expected, but much larger. Upon arrival, John offered him a drink, which he accepted, and they sat down in a puffy leather sofa in the living room. Yoko Ono passed through briefly, exchanged pleasantries with Richie, and left again to do her own thing, whatever that might have been. Richie got the distinct impression that visitors (even complete strangers) were a very common occurrence in the household. 

Richie tried to think of something to say, some bit of small talk. They had been talking for awhile, about things Richie had never discussed even with his closest friends, but for some reason, the change of venue made him feel as if he should say something light and polite. Compliment the furniture? Ask about Sean?

But before Richie could make any kind of artificially small talk, John said, “Why is it, do you think, that a man gets along better with other men, than he does with a woman?”

Richie shrugged. “If I knew that, I'd probably have a girlfriend right now.”

“So what happened with the girl? The one you were with for so long?”

“We drifted apart, I guess.”

“I figured that. What came between you?”

“I don't know... just stuff. We didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things.”

“But you must have been compatible at some point.”

“I think we might have been faking it for awhile.”

“Ah. I think that's what goes wrong with most relationships. False advertising, as it were.”

Richie swirled the ice in his drink, watching it skim the sides of the glass. “When I first met her, she liked that I was a musician. It's what drew her to me, I think.”

“Ah...” John said, knowingly. 

Even though he figured John already knew where this was leading, Richie elaborated. “And after a few months she started nagging me about it. I wasn't spending enough time with her, and on and on. But I mostly ignored it.”

“You always do in the beginning.”

“And then it became, do you really think you're going to make a living at this, you should get a regular job, my father knows someone who's hiring, blah blah blah.”

“Typical.”

“And I made an effort. I missed some band practices for her, and I didn't play when she was around. Hell, I didn't even talk about it when she was around. I kept thinking things would settle into a groove and we'd be able to make it work if I tried to meet her halfway, you know?”

“I do know.”

“But she didn't want to meet halfway; she wanted me to just give up music. Toward the end, she started talking about the ring she wanted, and 'you need to be a good example for your children' and stuff like that. Marriage and kids. We were nineteen years-old for fuck's sake. I finally called it quits.”

“Can I ask what she did for a living?”

“She worked in a convenience store.”

“And what did she do for fun? Any hobbies?”

“Not really.”

John chuckled and took a sip of his drink. “You were her hobby, Richie. Her project.”

“It felt like it.”

“I'm serious. Most people are that way, and not just women, either. They are attracted to you for whatever reason in the beginning, but as they get to know you, all they can see is the person they _want_ you to be, not the person you are.”

“Sounds about right.”

“It's particularly hard for artists to find people who understand them. Musicians, writers, painters, it's all the same. People are attracted to the art in the beginning, but they get bored because they don't share the interest.”

“So you're saying I should find a chick who's into some kind of art and I'll be better off?”

“Possibly, but that's not even the point of what I'm saying. You could find a hundred birds who are into art, and you still might not be compatible. Being an artist is no guarantee that you will respect another's art.” 

Richie finished his drink and stared into the bottom of the glass. He had a vague sense that John was circling something he'd attempted to pin down himself from time to time, and couldn't really figure out what it was he was trying to get at. He usually stopped himself from the line of thinking by telling himself he was being too picky or he was just trying to find reasons to move on to the next girl.

“Who are you, Richie?” John asked.

“What?”

“Who are you? Who are you really?”

“I'm a musician.”

“No, that's what you _do_. I'm asking who you _are_ ,” John said, then smiled and took Richie's glass. “Here, I'll even get you a refill to give you time to think about it.”

Richie watched the other man scooping out fresh ice, pouring another three fingers of the best scotch Richie had ever tasted, and wondered how the fuck he could possibly answer a question like that. It didn't even make any sense, did it?

Returning to the sofa, John handed Richie his freshened drink, and asked, “Did you give it some thought?”

“I don't think I really understand the question.”

“It's hard to answer, isn't it?”

Richie nodded.

“I don't think I've ever heard anyone answer it satisfactorily on the first try. Except for Yoko,” John said.

“Can I ask how she answered?”

“She said, 'whoever I'm meant to be at this moment'. I liked that answer.”

“It's a good answer.”

“Too much of this world-- society, culture, your family, your employers-- they place your value on what you _do_. You are the sum of your actions, and nothing more. If what you _do_ doesn't correspond with their preconceived ideas of what you _should_ be doing, they feel a providential duty to shape you into whatever form they decide fits you.”

John paused, as though waiting for Richie to add his opinion, but Richie remained quiet, so John continued, “The trouble is, each person you meet has a different idea of what you _should_ be doing. If you behave in such a way as to please your father, your mother will be angry. If you behave in such a way as to make your teachers happy, your friends will be angry. And if you behave in such a way as to make yourself happy, almost _everybody_ will be angry with you... but especially those who imagine they should be the person who 'knows you best', and know deep inside that they don't know you at all, and never really can.”

Richie felt goosebumps rise on his skin, and he wished he was wearing a jacket or something to hide it. “Your significant other,” he said, in a near-whisper.

“It's an uphill battle already, trying to find someone you can really be compatible with, and who won't try to change you. See why I don't think a person should pare their choices down even further by eliminating people they've never even met, based on gender?” 

Richie nodded and took a drink. The liquid slid reluctantly down his tight throat.

“What is it, then, that you think really constitutes emotional compatibility?” John continued. “Why is it that you can have friends for years, and still perhaps never find someone you would want to marry?”

“The friends I've had forever... they don't judge me like that. Whatever I am, or whatever I'm doing at that moment... that's me, and they know it, and they like me anyway.”

“People talk about being 'accepted for who they are', but most of them only have a superficial understanding of what that could mean.”

“Meaning?”

“To most people, being 'accepted for who they are' means that people are fine with what they _do_... Let them do something completely out of character, and see how long all the same people 'accept' them. Being accepted is extremely conditional, and to most people, that's completely normal. So normal, they don't give it a second thought. What they think of as 'being accepted' is merely them _happening_ to fit in with what other people want them to be.”

“That's pretty depressing.”

“In a way. But in a way, it's wonderful.”

“How is that?”

John leaned forward, his eyes intense and, Richie felt, staring right through him. “Because when you meet someone who truly does accept you for who and what you are, and not just for what you _could_ be or what you just so _happen_ to be, you know you've found someone you can really be compatible with. In a lasting way.”

Richie swallowed and broke away from John's gaze, so that he could catch his breath. “Like soulmates, you mean?” he said, inwardly wincing at how hoarse his voice sounded.

“Yes. In a way.”

“ _In a way_? What does that mean?”

“The term 'soulmate' denotes being thrust into that position. You are born that way, with that soul. You fit with your fellow soulmate because you _have_ to, because there's no other way for you to be.”

“And that's not how you view it?”

“No. I think it's a choice. Every day, it's a choice. You _choose_ to leave your heart and mind open enough to accept this other person, with everything you are, even though you will never really know them in the way you know yourself. You _choose_ to not be threatened by that difference. You _choose_ to be comfortable enough with it to not try to change the other person into whatever image you feel they should fit, in order to try to eliminate that difference.”

Richie chanced a glance back up at John's eyes. They were still penetrating right into his mind, but the idea didn't scare Richie anymore; it made him feel more vulnerable than he'd ever felt in his life, but it didn't scare him.

“Do you think there is someone for everyone?”

“Yes, but it doesn't necessarily mean you'll find them... The biggest choice you have to make is whether or not to recognize your person when they come along.”

The tightness of Richie's throat spread, choking his breathing, and squeezing unexpected tears from his eyes. He quickly wiped them away, but not quickly enough. 

“Why are you crying?” John asked. There was no accusation in the question, no challenge. It was just a question, and Richie could tell that John was asking because he really wanted to know-- not because the crying made him uncomfortable and he had to ascertain its reasons in order to be okay with it, but because he genuinely cared to know the answer.

There were only two people in the world who had ever cared about Richie's feelings in such a selfless way: his parents. 

“I don't know,” Richie said, and it was the truth. “I just feel like... I feel like I've missed so much. There's so much I don't know and I don't understand. What if there are things I never get to know?”

“You're very young,” John said, his hand resting on Richie's shoulder. “There are so many things the wisest 90 year-old will never know. If your mind is open, you'll get the knowledge you need, when you need it.”

John moved his hand from Richie's shoulder to the back of his neck and leaned in a little closer, as though to speak confidentially. Richie returned his gaze with tear-glazed eyes. “You're already wiser than you know,” John said. “And more open-minded. Don't sell yourself short because of what lesser people try to make you believe. They will never truly know what's inside of you. Nobody ever will. But when the time is right, you'll find someone who will accept you anyway. And they'll love you the way you deserve to be loved.”

A chill passed through Richie's body, starting in his chest and radiating down his legs and arms and all the way out his fingertips. The adrenaline rush before taking a plunge. 

He crossed the nominal space between himself and the other man, and pressed his lips against John's. 

John neither shrank away, nor returned the kiss. For a moment, he was perfectly still. 

The next moment, the reality of what was happening fell like a hammer blow on Richie's brain, and he jumped back as though he'd been shoved.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “I gotta go.”

“Where are you going to go?”

“I-- I don't know... I gotta go. Fuck, I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

Surprise rendered Richie incapable of feeling self-conscious for the second it took to make eye contact again. 

“What do you mean, 'for what'?”

“You're expecting me to be angry? I'm not.”

“I just... I just-- fucking _kissed_ you, for fuck's sake.”

John took a sip of his drink, unfazed. “It was a pretty charged conversation,” he said, smiling. “I'm surprised I didn't snog you first.”

Despite himself, Richie gave a little laugh, high-pitched with anxiety, and looked down, shaking his head. Then he ran a calming hand through his hair and took a deep breath. “I really am sorry. I don't know what happened.”

“What happened is you let your guard down. That's a good thing, believe it or not. Just don't do it with strangers or anything and you should be fine.”

“So you're not-- offended or anything?”

“I like you, Richie, and I trust you, so I'll say something that may ease your mind enough to keep you from running off into the night. A lot of what I say is pure rhetoric. Armchair philosophy. But a lot of what I say comes from experience. Understand?”

Richie nodded. He thought he understood.


	4. Yes Is The Answer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Instead, he left Jon to his work, and took to studying the top of his head, wondering how it was possible to be so in tune with someone you just met... To be that compatible.

1983

Richie watched the top of the other man's head, bent comically far over his paper as he wrote, making him look like a first-grader intent on forming his letters correctly. Richie already understood that this was a necessary interruption for the man; even though the writing on the original paper was perfectly legible and _already down_ , Jon Bongiovi had to re-copy it onto a fresh piece of paper, using the best penmanship he was capable of.

Tonight was the second time they'd spoken, and the first time they'd written together. They were already on their third completed song in four hours. With the first two songs, Richie had tried to convince Jon that this ritual of re-copying was unnecessary and bogged down the creative flow. Jon, on the other hand, felt it was 'making it official' somehow, so Richie didn't even try to stop him from obsessing over the neatness of the third set of lyrics.

Instead, he left Jon to his work, and took to studying the top of his head, wondering how it was possible to be so in tune with someone you just met, to write song after song with them. To be so comfortable with them that your creative spark was not only encouraged by them, but fanned into a full-blown flame. To be that compatible.

Richie cleared his throat and took to studying his fingernails instead of Jon's head. _Compatible._ His mind drifted, as it often did when he thought of that word.

When Richie had turned on the radio that night, and heard that horrifying news, he'd actually sunk to his knees in the middle of his bedroom and sobbed. The next few weeks were a blur of grief and depression, and everyone around him, his friends and family alike, assumed his reaction was merely that of a serious musician whose idol had died. They knew Richie had met John Lennon that night in New York City, but Richie had told them all that the two of them had discussed music, nothing more. Therefore they all seriously underestimated the loss Richie had endured, and Richie let them; some things they just didn't need to know.

Richie had gone over the conversation so many times in his head that he could remember the thing almost verbatim even three years later. Over time, the purpose of it had managed to sink in fully; the idea of a person falling in love without regard to gender no longer freaked Richie out, but he still found it somewhat ridiculous, the idea of he, himself, falling for a man.

In the ensuing years, Richie had met and bedded his share of women, but none of them had even come close to what he now knew he was looking for in a relationship.

Jon finished writing and tossed his pen down on the table for emphasis. “Ha! Done!” he announced, smiling brightly. His eyes sparkled, even in the low light.

Richie got very interested in his fingernails again.

“Sorry I told you to fuck off the last time,” Jon said, and Richie looked up.

“That’s okay, I kinda expected it.”

“I couldn't write with Sabo for shit.” Jon picked up the finished lyrics (the neater ones, of course) and spread the looseleaf pages out like a giant poker hand. “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“It does seem a little like... I don't know... kismet or something.”

Jon grimaced. “ _Kismet?_ ”

“You got a problem with that word?”

“It's just... a little queer, don't you think?”

“It means 'fate', dipshit. What's queer about that?”

“I know what it means. But people usually use it-- you know, in a romantic sense.”

“So?”

“So, I'm the straightest guy you'll ever meet. I don't appreciate words like 'kismet' being used on me,” Jon said, grinning. A moment later, he ducked a head-bound slap from Richie. 

“Not secure enough for that, I take it?” 

“Oh-- I'm secure, all right. I know exactly what I'm about. I'll go straight for the pussy until I die, man.”

Richie smiled and shook his head at the simplistic bluntness of the assertion, recognizing himself from just a few years ago in it, as clearly as if he were looking in a mirror. Jon was missing out on a great truth of life, and he didn't even realize it. 

Taking a deep, calming breath, Richie met his new friend's eyes and said, “You don't think you could ever be seduced by a man?”

**END**


End file.
